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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23227213">That Moment of Dawning Horror</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixTiger/pseuds/PhoenixTiger'>PhoenixTiger</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Missing - Margaret Peterson Haddix</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Family, Gen, JB's POV, MAJOR spoilers for book 5, That Shocking Revelation, Time Travel Lore, identity crisis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 12:00:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,391</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23227213</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixTiger/pseuds/PhoenixTiger</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alonzo (AKA JB) finds out certain facts about himself.</p>
<p>AKA</p>
<p>*That* moment in Caught.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. You Did *What*?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>(I feel like I'm a bit late considering how the series ended about 5 years ago, but I posted it here in case any of the 10 people in this fandom wanted to see.)</p>
<p>This started off as the Mileva Einstein revelation in Caught (book 5, chapters 43/45/46) but in JB's point of view. I felt that this was an important development for him and I was disappointed that it wasn't really examined—understandable, since the book is in Jonah's perspective. This is my examination of that scene, and its aftermath, with respect to JB's character.</p>
<p>JB is referred to as "Alonzo" here since that's his real name, and it didn't make sense for himself (nor his friends in the future) to call him JB, as that is a nickname given by Katherine.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It took Alonzo a moment longer to realize the implication of Jonah’s words.</p>
<p><i>Escape</i>?</p>
<p>He broke off the rambling explanation that he’d absently been offering and stared at the boy, trying to read his expression. Jonah looked nervous, twitchy, but there was a steely determination growing beneath it.</p>
<p>“Is there any reason you think Mileva might have escaped?” Alonzo said slowly. “Escaped what?” A terrible thought struck him, and his words gained urgency. “To where? And how?” <i>Or when?</i></p>
<p>Alonzo’s gaze dropped to Jonah’s hands and lingered, trying to find evidence of the Elucidator he must have used to return to the time hollow. Jonah’s shaking palms opened in a deliberate motion.</p>
<p>They were empty.</p>
<p>He… <i>lost</i> it?</p>
<p>“You…” Alonzo began, his mouth barely forming coherent words, “<i>left</i> the <i>Elucidator</i> behind?”</p>
<p><i>Please say no</i>, he thought. <i>Say you’re joking.</i></p>
<p>“Well, it’s not like I just lost it,” Jonah said, his voice rising defensively. Way too defensively for a joke.</p>
<p>It took about a second to distil his whirling thoughts into a sentence.</p>
<p>“You <i>purposely</i> gave a time-native a second-generation, top-of-the-line, freestyle Elucidator?” he asked, his voice a mix of incredulity and horror. No time agent would ever—oh, but of course something like this would happen. With Jonah, this always happened. Alonzo banished the webs of shock clouding his thoughts and started to scan through exactly what Jonah and Mileva did.</p>
<p>“She’s not just any ‘time-native’!” Jonah was saying. He sounded unduly offended. “She’s Mileva Einstein! She—”</p>
<p>Alonzo was only half listening. He was staring intently at the projection. <i>Elucidator, send me back to the time hollow.</i> Jonah had said. <i>But you stay here with Mileva.</i></p>
<p>What was that boy <i>thinking</i>? Did he <i>want</i> to ruin everything right after Mileva fixed it?</p>
<p>He was aware of Hadley already scanning for disruption even as Alonzo conducted an OT Comparison of 1903.</p>
<p>“—don’t you care?” Jonah’s furious demand cut through his concentration.</p>
<p>For some reason, those words struck a nerve. It was all he could do to avoid glaring openly at the boy.</p>
<p>“If I cared that much about every person in all of time,” he snapped, “then how could I let <i>anyone</i> stay in misery?”</p>
<p>The scan came up clean.</p>
<p>“She didn’t use the Elucidator even once that first year,” he said, trying to keep the relief out of his voice. He didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.</p>
<p>“I’ve just checked 1905, too,” Hadley said, not bothering to hide his relief. “No change.”</p>
<p>Alonzo breathed out, releasing tension. “Okay, that was the big worry,” he said, sounding slightly more optimistic.</p>
<p>“See?” Jonah said triumphantly. “See? She’s not going to do anything to mess things up!”</p>
<p>It was still too early to celebrate.</p>
<p>“Check the other time periods of Albert’s huge influence and revelations” he said to Hadley, deliberately ignoring Jonah’s premature glee. “What about 1915? Or 1919? Or 1939?”</p>
<p>“Clean,” said Hadley.</p>
<p>“See, everything’s going to be all right,” said Jonah, still using that gleeful tone.</p>
<p>As if in answer, an alarm went off, saving Alonzo from responding.</p>
<p>“What year is it?” he asked resignedly. See, he knew it was too early to get their hopes up. “Which year does Mileva ruin?”</p>
<p>Hadley was on it immediately. “Looks early twenty-first century,” he said. “Not Mileva’s native time period. The setting is some kind of school.”</p>
<p><i>Oh no, don’t tell me she visited the 21st century.</i> The possibility for paradox if she revealed who she was when she wasn’t supposed to be alive, or worse, if she revealed herself to Emily or Jonah before they were meant to meet her… surely Mileva would have more common sense than that?</p>
<p>The kids let out sounds of recognition. This was their time, then.</p>
<p>“Oh, no!” Hadley exclaimed above the clamour of voices. “Everything else Mileva resolved, and it’s all going to be for nothing if Jonah and Katherine aren’t back where they belong when time resumes—”</p>
<p>One type of panic was replaced by another. Alonzo had been too focused on what Mileva could have ruined, but the ripple of change would include all the fixes she did, and it was about to be ruined again by the sudden disappearance of two people.</p>
<p>“What’s the big deal?” Katherine said, her confusion evident. “Can’t you let us get back into position and then start time up again?”</p>
<p>Alonzo shook his head furiously, and he was aware of Hadley doing the same.</p>
<p>“Things don’t work that way when so much of time has been stopped,” Alonzo explained, grabbing Hadley’s Elucidator and setting the coordinates. <i>Not when you’ve been displaced so much from your original position.</i> “We don’t have that much control. You’ve got to get back into place as soon as you can, and we’ll just have to hope nobody noticed you disappearing, or at least convince them they were seeing things…”</p>
<p>He trailed off, realizing that they had already been sent back. Only he, Hadley and Emily were left.</p>
<p>“I’m sure it will work out,” said Hadley, failing to sound confident. Alonzo could see the momentary hesitation before the other agent skipped forward to see the outcome.</p>
<p>Alonzo himself watched intently, almost daring not to breathe.</p>
<p>He watched Katherine use her force of personality to convince any eyewitnesses that she had not, in fact, disappeared. It appeared, to his relief, to have worked.</p>
<p>He saw that no one had been paying attention to Jonah, and that no one would question him about it either.</p>
<p>Alonzo and Hadley sighed in relief simultaneously. Somehow, it was easier to do so without the kids around.</p>
<p>Their relief was short-lived, however, because an alert had sounded. Elucidator ping.</p>
<p>Hadley was already zooming into that moment even as Alonzo quickly racked his brain for instances of Elucidators in the 21st century. He’d given Angela one, but that had been given to Mileva—</p>
<p>He leaned closer to the screen, jostling Hadley out of the way.</p>
<p>Jonah was holding an Eludicator—the very same one Alonzo had given Angela. A string appeared: <i>Dear Jonah, It is time to return the Elucidator to you. Thank you so much. I did actually figure out a way to use it. I think it is better to show you.</i></p>
<p>He and Hadley exchanged looks of panic. They didn’t need to explain the implications. As for Emily, who was regarding them curiously… well, they all might as well watch Mileva’s transmission together.</p>
<p>“I’ll get them,” Alonzo said tersely. He didn’t need to explain who he meant.</p>
<p>Without waiting for an answer, Alonzo popped into his office for a spare Elucidator and dropped himself into the 21st century, right beside Angela’s car.</p>
<p>“What the—JB?” she sputtered. Despite this, she looked more startled than surprised. She glanced around carefully, even though he’d made sure beforehand that no one except her would see him appear.</p>
<p>“Here,” said Alonzo, holding out the spare Elucidator. “Get Katherine and meet me and Jonah at the time hollow. Wait—” He quickly set the Elucidator to lock onto Katherine. “This should tell you where she is.”</p>
<p>Angela eyed the device in his hand, before taking it and exiting her car in one fluid motion. Alonzo didn’t stick around to see anything more. Explanations could wait.</p>
<p>He teleported himself behind Jonah and laid a hand on his arm. The boy jumped and whirled around, and like Angela, didn’t look as surprised as he probably ought to have. Those two had gotten too used to time travel; Alonzo knew that was a bad thing, but it also made him feel kind of… proud?</p>
<p>Then he saw the Elucidator—<i>Mileva’s</i> Elucidator—in Jonah’s hand and the tight, panicky feeling filled his head again.</p>
<p>“Why don’t we go see for ourselves exactly what Mileva did with that Elucidator?” he asked, trying —and probably failing—to sound calm. It came out sounding as if there were something constricting his windpipe, the way some people got when barely concealing intense feelings.</p>
<p>“Can’t I have lunch first?” Jonah asked.</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>Alonzo pulled them back into the time hollow, where Hadley was in the midst of explaining something to Emily. He saw that Angela and Katherine had already arrived. Katherine was complaining.</p>
<p>“I thought,” Alonzo said, cutting her off, “we should all watch this together.” His teeth were gritted. “Immediately.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. That Moment of Dawning Horror</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Nooo…” This was even worse than Alonzo had thought. “Tete couldn’t have become a time agent.” He could tell no one was listening to him. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince everyone that it wasn’t possible, or if he was trying to explain why it would ruin time. “That situation is just ripe for paradoxes. It shouldn’t—”</p><p>Alonzo cut off mid-syllable as soon as he heard what Mileva was saying.</p><p>“I even met our son once, in his capacity as a time agent,” she said. “In a manner of speaking. Time was stopped then, and I didn’t know who he was until later, but—”</p><p>The implication of her words drowned out the rest of her sentence as his mind raced to decipher its meaning. <i>Met … capacity as a time agent … time was stopped…</i></p><p>He glanced over at Hadley, barely noticing the Elucidator slip from his fingers. There was a look of horror on Hadley’s face, and Alonzo was pretty sure it mirrored his own expression.</p><p>There was one obvious explanation for what she was saying, but that thought couldn’t <i>possibly</i> be true. That she was talking about <i>them</i>.</p><p>He took in Hadley’s light brown hair, curly, nothing like Mileva’s or Albert’s. He recalled his own, dark brown hair—was it the same shade…?</p><p><i>No, it’s impossible</i>, he thought, ignoring the exclamations swirling around him. There had to be another explanation. Mileva hadn’t met any other—any agents during her detours, had she? Time would have been stopped in all periods, so it could have been anyone in any time…</p><p>“I’m sure everyone understands now that nothing I did can be changed,” Mileva said, and Alonzo  could swear she was looking right at him. He heard her words through the blood pounding in his head, heard them so clearly. “You can search for answers. You can ask how a time conundrum so intricately constructed was meant to be.”</p><p><i>Pause it!</i> he shouted at himself. <i>Stop!</i> But he couldn’t get his body to move. A persistent ringing had started to accompany the pulse in his ears, washing away all sound except her voice. He felt as if he were frozen all over again.</p><p>“But mostly I just want you to know that I did this out of love for you, Tete.”</p><p><i>She’s not talking to me,</i> he thought. By now, it seemed the room had vanished around him, every person, every sound. He was frozen, alone with Mileva as her gaze bore into his, her eyes glistening with emotion. Her brown eyes. She was smiling, now.</p><p>Mileva opened her mouth. <i>No,</i> he thought, before any sound could come out. He could hear her words before they formed. He didn’t want to hear them.</p><p>Mileva’s words were quiet, unassuming, completely unsuited for what they were. And they rang with clarity despite the blood roaring in his ears. “Or should I say, I love you, my son JB?”</p><p>In the silence that followed, a dropped pin could’ve rang as clearly as  a bell. At least, until horribly loud choking breaths filled it.</p><p><i>She’s lying,</i> he thought numbly. Was his vision starting to blur?</p><p>Emily was saying something. “Wait—JB—you’re Tete Einstein? You’re my <i>brother</i>?”</p><p>The word ‘brother’ broke whatever force that had been holding him frozen. He jerked up from his seat and stumbled backwards, as if he could distance himself from her, from her words, from everyone around her gawking and exclaiming.</p><p><i>No.</i> He shook his head as hard as he could, maybe hard enough so that he could shake the thoughts now drilling into his head. <i>No, I’m not. It’s impossible.</i> But he could see that he couldn’t convince them, couldn’t convince himself, couldn’t stop them from pressing in around him, not even as he gestured <i>stay back</i>.</p><p>“We can’t have this!” he cried, his voice tearing from his throat. He realized that those choking breaths were coming from him, yet he couldn’t stop because he needed air, just as he needed them to stop <i>staring</i> like—like he was <i>Tete Einstein</i>.</p><p>His foot hit something—an Elucidator. He half fell, half stooped down to a knee to pick it up. On autopilot, his shaking fingers punched in coordinates.</p><p>“All of you—go back to your regular lives.” Those were the words coming out of his mouth. “Go back to normal. Forget all of this!”</p><p>In an instant, the time hollow was empty. He’d sent them away. Even Hadley.</p><p>Alonzo collapsed against the wall, pressing his head onto his knees, still struggling to breathe. Was—was his asthma coming back? <i>Tete had asthma,</i> he remembered dazedly, before groaning and shaking away the thought. This couldn’t be asthma. Not in a time hollow.</p><p>“Al, you okay?”</p><p>He looked up to see a worried Hadley.</p><p>“I’ll be fine,” Alonzo said between breaths. It came out all mixed together. The concern in Hadley’s face only increased.</p><p>“Shall I call medical?” Hadley asked. Alonzo shook his head jerkily.</p><p>“Need to be alone,” he said.</p><p>Hadley frowned, but nodded, evidently noting that Alonzo wasn’t in any danger in a time hollow. Or perhaps his concern wasn’t physical?</p><p>“Alright,” Hadley said. “We can talk later if you want.”</p><p>And he was gone.</p><p>Slowly, without the pressure of everyone’s presence and attention, Alonzo managed to calm his breathing down.</p><p>He leaned his head on the wall. Mileva’s words were starting to replay in his head.</p><p><i>My son JB,</i> she’d said. That was the final thing he’d heard. He didn’t know when the recording had cut off, nor who had cut it off. He had been too busy trying to breathe.</p><p><i>That can’t be true,</i> he thought, firmly. But doubt plagued him. He had the feeling this situation wouldn’t be so simple.</p><p>Then he thought: <i>Why does everyone call me JB?</i> It wasn’t just Mileva, either. Angela liked calling him that, and that fact was shared by half the missing children. <i>I guess “JB” is easier to pronounce than “Alonzo”</i>.</p><p>This line of thought was easier to pursue than the Tete issue.</p><p><i>Besides, Mileva must have known me as JB before she’d found out my real name,</i> he reasoned. <i>Er—my actual, present day name.</i></p><p>Great, now he was thinking as though <i>Tete</i>—or rather, <i>Eduard</i>, was his ‘real’ name.</p><p>Because even as he reflexively denied it, he knew it, well, it wasn’t <i>impossible</i>. With his brown hair and brown eyes and skin tone, he looked… at least a little like Mileva. Like Albert Einstein. And he did have asthma, not that it was that big an issue with the medicine he had.</p><p>But… he wasn’t <i>adopted</i>. Or at least, he had never been told he was. He’d always thought he looked like his parents, thought implicitly that they were related, never had cause to think otherwise. Never had cause to look into it, because it had always seemed so sure that he was born in the 26th century as a modern citizen, not a <i>time immigrant</i> from the 20th century.</p><p>Alonzo realized that he’d been spinning the Elucidator in his hand around and around so much that it was warm and slick with sweat. It took effort to stop the motion and put it down. He sighed, wiping his hand on his pants. What was he doing? If he wanted to confirm or deny this, sitting here and freaking out about it wouldn’t help.</p><p>
  <i>Okay. Slow breaths, clear head. Let’s look at this logically.</i>
</p><p>Number one: What if he <i>was</i> Tete Einstein?</p><p>Then a paradox—no, a set of interconnecting paradoxes—had been created and resolved so precisely it was a miracle time hadn’t collapsed from the sheer improbability of it. <i>Time conundrum so intricately constructed,</i> Mileva had said. ‘Intricately constructed’ was correct. At its most basic, Alonzo had enabled Mileva to travel through time, and Mileva travelling through time had enabled Alonzo to exist as he was. Without one, the other would not exist. As with most paradoxes, it was circular logic, with reasoning taking you nowhere.</p><p>He sighed again. He’d always hated thinking through paradoxes. To him, the word ‘paradox’ was always coupled with ‘avoid’ and that was the end of it. The 1600–1611 paradox had bothered him enough, and that was just about communication. It had been up to him make sure what he knew would happen happened. Here, the paradox lay in random temporal fluctuation, where <i>randomness</i> was necessary to make it work.</p><p>The point was, the whole thing was so improbable, it was easy to write off.</p><p>Except that meant Mileva <i>was</i> lying, to ease her husband’s mind, perhaps? Why would she do something like that? Why would she record it and show Jonah, show <i>him</i>?</p><p><i>Maybe she was mistaken,</i> he thought. <i>Mistook the real Tete for me.</i> But that meant she <i>did</i> send Tete into the present. That meant the real Tete was still somewhere here, somewhere in the time agency.</p><p>Anyway, he doubted she was mistaken. How could someone who did everything she did without a trace make such a glaring error?</p><p><i>I know,</i> he thought dully. <i>You just don’t want to be him. Admit it.</i></p><p>Because if Alonzo K’Tah was actually Tete Einstein, it meant his parents had lied to him about who he was. Where he came from. He never thought to ask, so it was more a lie from omission, but the idea of something this important being kept away from him seized him with the kind of hurt that only came from betrayal—the kind of hurt Sam had inflicted him with.</p><p>Alonzo glared at the Elucidator on the floor beside him. Maybe he shouldn’t have watched it. Then maybe, he wouldn’t be thinking about whether his whole identity had been a lie.</p><p>He closed his eyes, reorienting himself. <i>Logically.</i></p><p>Number two: What facts support the hypothesis that he <i>was</i> Tete Einstein?</p><p>Well, his own appearance suggested it. Then again, brown hair and brown eyes and light skin was a common combination. He needed a direct comparison.</p><p><i>Show Eduard Einstein in original time, one image for every year he was alive in the 20th century,</i> he commanded the hollow’s AI. <i>On, say, his birthday.</i></p><p>A series of images appeared on the walls, depicting a baby on the left, progressing to an adult on the right. Tete began to look worse for wear at about 1911—when he moved to Prague, Alonzo recalled—and he was only able to glance briefly at the 1930 image before averting his gaze. Somehow, it felt uncomfortable to look at adult Tete, and not just because of the hollowness in his eyes.</p><p>With only a small hesitation, he commanded, <i>Compare each image to myself, at matching ages.</i></p><p>98% AVG MATCH, the monitors declared. According to the curve, the match grew progressively less over the years. However, the match never dipped below 95%.</p><p>
  <i>Okay. So we look similar. Really similar. Identical twin similar, with variation that can be chalked to environment.</i>
</p><p>Then there was his asthma. He shared that, too. Tete—historically—had just been impacted much greater from their lack of treatment technologies. <i>It would be like that time I got stuck in the 1600s,</i> Alonzo recalled. <i>When the fire hit and I couldn’t breathe. Except almost constantly.</i></p><p>He understood now, more than ever, that if he <i>was</i> Tete, he would have wanted to grow up in the 2500s, not the 1900s. Even if he hadn’t lived his whole life as he had. <i>That’s the dilemma those missing children face,</i> he thought.</p><p>He could compare genetics, but he couldn’t risk getting a sample of Tete’s DNA just in case he <i>was</i> Tete. And he didn’t know if the system knew enough to prevent him from duplicating himself accidentally, not if Mileva covered her tracks well. Which she did.</p><p><i>I guess there is something I can do,</i> he thought, almost reluctantly. <i>Someone I can ask.</i></p><p>He pocketed Mileva’s Elucidator, intending to keep it until he could figure out what to do with it.</p><p>Using his other Elucidator, he set coordinates for the Time Agency HQ, 2538, right after he left his office.</p>
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